This blog features my weekly column called "What's up in the sky". It is published every Saturday in the Ellensburg newspaper, Daily Record (http://www.kvnews.com/). While my postings will be most accurate for Central Washington, readers throughout the northern USA may find something of use.

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Saturday: Venus
is about a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above the southwest
horizon at 6:30 p.m. Saturn is right above it.

Sunday: What
do Justin Bieber and Betelgeuse have in common? Both are superstars. One will
shine brightly for about a few hundred thousand more years. The other will only
seem to be around for that long. “Sorry” Beliebers. “If you Love Yourself”, you
and your “Boyfriend” need to learn more about Betelgeuse, the real super giant
star that is big enough to hold about one million Suns. “What Do You Mean” you
don’t know where to look? For more information about Betelgeuse, go to http://goo.gl/0MyfHT.
You’ll find it one fist above due east at 11 p.m.

Monday: Halloween.
The pumpkins. The candy. The children going door-to-door dressed up as their
favorite astronomer couple Elisabeth and Johannes Hevelius. At least
they should because Halloween is, in part, an astronomical holiday. Halloween
is a “cross-quarter date”, a day approximately midway between an equinox and a
solstice. Historically, the Celts of the British Isles used cross-quarter dates
as the beginnings of seasons. For the Celts, winter began with Halloween. So
when all those little Hevelius’s come to your door tonight night, honor the
Celts and give them a wintry treat. If they ask you for a trick, point out Mars,
two fists above the south horizon at 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday: Happy
Celtic New Year! Many historians think that November 1, known for the festival
of Samhain, was the ancient Celtic New Year’s Day. Samhain, Old Irish for
“summer’s end”, was a harvest festival that may have contributed to some of the
customs of our current “holiday” of Halloween.

Wednesday: Jupiter
is one and a half fists above the east-southeast horizon at 7 a.m.

Thursday: Lacerta,
the faint lizard constellation, is straight overhead at 8 p.m. It was named by
the Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1687 to fill the space between the
much brighter and well-defined constellations Pegasus, Andromeda, Cassiopeia,
Cepheus, and Cygnus going clockwise from the constellation just south of
Lacerta. Johannes

Friday:
Tonight and tomorrow night is the peak of the Southern Taurid meteor shower. The
meteors appear to come from a point in the constellation Taurus the bull. This
point is about three fists above the east horizon at 9 p.m. This point remains one
and a half fists to the right of the arrow-shaped snout of the bull throughout
the night. This is not a very active metoeor shower, about seven per hour. But
it is rich in fireballs, the bright meteors that leave a long streak in the sky.
The moon will be in the waxing crescent phase, near the south-southwest
horizon, at peak viewing time so this might be your lucky meteor watching time.
For everything you need to know about the Taurid meteor shower, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=50.

The positional
information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for
the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky, go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Saturday: Dead
October flowers lead to November meteor showers. While the Leonid meteor shower
is the big name event, the few bright and surprisingly colorful fireballs per
hour you can see during the typical Southern and Northern Taurids meteor
showers may make it worth your while to stay up late for a while. These two
showers overlap from about October 19 to November 19. Meteor showers are named
after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These
meteors appear to come from a point in Taurus the bull. This point is about
four fists held upright and at arm’s length above the southeast horizon at 11 p.m.
You can follow this point throughout the night, as it will remain one fist to
the right of the V-shaped Hyades Cluster with its bright star Aldebaran
(pronounced Al-deb’-a-ran). Meteors are tiny rocks that burn up in the
atmosphere when the Earth runs into them. These rocks are broken off parts of
Comet 2P/Encke.

Sunday: Venus,
Saturn, and the star Antares form a small triangle less than one fist above the
southwest horizon at 6:45 p.m. Venus is the brightest point of light in the
triangle. Antares is to the lower left of Venus. Saturn is less than one fist
to the upper left of Venus.

Monday: Rho
Cassiopeiae is the most distant star that can be seen with the naked eye by
most people. It is about 8,200 light years away. That means that the light that
reaches your eyes from that star left over 8,000 years ago, before the
beginning of time according to the Byzantine calendar. Rho Cassiopeiae is six
fists above the northeast horizon at 8 p.m., just above the zigzag line that
marks the constellation Cassiopeia.

Tuesday: Vega,
the bright bluish star in the constellation Lyra, is six fists above the west
horizon at 8 p.m.

Wednesday: Mars is a little less than two fists above the southern horizon
at 7 p.m. Recent images from the MAVEN mission (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile
Evolution Mission) show cloud formation on Mars. Clouds of water-ice crystals
form when sunlight warms the surface, causing the atmosphere just above the
surface to rise up, cool and condense. If this sounds familiar, it should.
Clouds form the same way on Earth. If you’d like to see a recording of Martian
cloud formation in action, go to https://goo.gl/vZvf21.

Thursday: If
the Dawn spacecraft didn’t know any better, it may have played “The Message” by
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five: “It’s like a jungle sometimes. It makes
me wonder how I keep from goin’ under”. That’s because most movies show an
asteroid belt as millions of large rocks close together, moving through space
and difficult to navigate. A “jungle” of asteroids. In reality, the objects in
the asteroid belt are far apart from each other and easy for Dawn to move
through without danger. Follow the trail of the Dawn spacecraft using images
found at http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/live_shots.html.

Friday: Jupiter
is less than a half a fist above the very thin crescent moon at 7 a.m. They are
low in the east-southeastern sky, just ahead of the rising Sun.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky,
go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Saturday: The
Milky Way makes a faint white trail from due northeast through straight
overhead to due southwest at 9 p.m. Starting in the northeast, the Milky Way
“passes through” the prominent constellations Auriga the charioteer, Cassiopeia
the queen, and Cygnus the swan with its brightest star, Deneb, nearly straight
overhead. After Cygnus, you’ll see Aquila the eagle with its brightest star
Altair about four and a half fists held upright and at arm’s length above the
southwest horizon.

Sunday: Saturn,
Venus, and Antares make a right triangle low in the southwest sky just after
sunset. Venus is less than a half a fist held upright and at arm’s length above
the southeast horizon at 7 p.m. Antares is the reddish star a little over a
fist to the left of Venus. Saturn is less than a fist above Antares.

Monday:
Halloween is coming soon so make sure you load up on peanut clusters, almond
clusters, and open star clusters. That last one will be easy (and cheap…
actually free) because two of the most prominent open star clusters in the sky
are easily visible in the autumn sky. The sideways V-shaped Hyades Cluster is
two fists above due east at 10 p.m. Containing over 300 stars; the Hyades
cluster is about 150 light years away and 625 million years old. The Pleiades
Cluster, a little more than three fists above due east, is larger at over 1000
stars and younger. Compared to our 5 billion year old Sun, the 100 million year
age of the Pleiades is infant-like. The moon will help you find these clusters.
This morning at 6:30 a.m., the Pleiades cluster is less than one fist to the
upper right of the moon and the Hyades cluster is about one fist to the upper
left of the moon. Tomorrow morning, the moon sits in the “V” of the Hyades
cluster.

Tuesday: Jupiter
is just over a half a fist above the east horizon at 6:30 a.m.

Wednesday: The constellation Vulpecula, the fox, stands six fists above due
southwest at 9 p.m. It is in the middle of the Summer Triangle, which is
defined by the bright stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair. The fox is so faint that
you need dark skies to see it.

Thursday: The Orionid meteor shower consists of the Earth colliding with
pieces of the remains of Halley's Comet's tail. This shower peaks tonight after
midnight. This is not a meteor shower that typically results in a meteor storm.
There will be about 15-20 meteors per hour, many more meteors than are visible
on a typical night but not the storm that some showers bring. The waning
gibbous moon will obscure some of the meteors. Meteor showers are named after
the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. These meteors
appear to come from a point in Orion, the hunter. This point is about one fist
above due east at midnight. You can follow this point throughout the night as
it will remain one fist above the prominent reddish star Betelgeuse (pronounced
Bet'-el-jews). The Orionid meteors are fast - up to 40 miles per second. If you
fall asleep tonight, you can catch the tail end of the shower every night until
early November. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/8f8J50.

Friday:
“It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood.” Constellations can be considered
neighborhoods in the nighttime sky. But, the stars in those constellations are
not necessarily neighbors in real life. For example, the bright stars in the
constellation Cassiopeia range from 19 light years to over 10,000 light years away from
Earth. One constellation that consists of real neighbors is Ursa Major. Or,
more specifically, the Big Dipper. Five stars in the Big Dipper are all moving
in the same direction in space, are about the same age and are all about 80
light years from Earth. “Please won’t you be my neighbor?” Skat, the third
brightest star in the constellation Aquarius is a neighbor to these five Big
Dipper stars, all of which are about 30 light years from each other. They are
thought to have originated in the same nebula about 500 million years ago. Just
like human children do, these child stars are slowly moving away from home.
Skat is about three fists above due south at 10 p.m. The much brighter
Fomalhaut is a fist and a half below Skat. And, it’s not fun being below Skat.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky,
go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Saturday: Today:
Look up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a dolphin. A dolphin? The
constellation Delphinus the dolphin is nearly six fists held upright and at
arm’s length above due south at 8:30 p.m. The constellation’s two brightest
stars are called Sualocin and Rotanev, which is Nicolaus Venator spelled
backwards. Venator worked at the Palermo Observatory in Italy in the mid
nineteenth century. He slipped these names into Giuseppe Piazzi’s star catalog
without him noticing. The Daily Record (shop Ellensburg) would never let anything
like that get into their newspaper. Their editing (shop Ellensburg) staff is
too good. Nothing (pohs grubsnellE) evades their gaze.

Sunday: The
bright planet Venus is less than a half a fist above the southwest horizon at 7
p.m. It is a little west of due southwest. Saturn is one and a half fists above
the southwest horizon, just east of due southwest. The star Antares is between
Saturn and the horizon.

Monday:
While you are resting after looking for Draconid meteors last week, start
thinking about the Orionid meteor shower. This shower, which consists of the
earth colliding with pieces of the remains of Halley's Comet's tail, peaks on
October 21 and 22 but produces meteors from now until early November. These
meteors appear to come from a point in Orion, the hunter. This point is about
two fists above the southeast horizon at 1 a.m. tonight. You can follow this
point throughout the night as it will remain near the prominent reddish star
Betelgeuse (pronounced Bet'-el-jews). The Orionid meteors are fast - up to 40
miles per second. For more information about the Orionids, go to https://goo.gl/ikAodW.

Tuesday: What
time is teatime? Certainly not during an autumn evening. The constellation
Sagittarius the archer, with its signature teapot shape, is sinking into the
south-southwest horizon by 8 p.m. The handle is on top and the spout is
touching the horizon ready to pour that last cup of tea. Mars is riding the
teapot, about one and a half fists above the south-southwest horizon.

Wednesday: Along with the not-so-subtle drug reference in their name, The
Doobie Brothers could have made an astronomy reference in their song lyrics if
they would have written: “Old Earth water, keep on rollin’, Mississippi moon
won’t you keep on shining on me.” Astronomers now think that some of the water
on Earth may be older than the Solar System. The chemical signature of the
water indicates it came from a very cold source, just a few degrees above
absolute zero. The early Solar System was much warmer than this meaning the
water came from a source outside the Solar System. For more information about
the old Earth water, go to http://goo.gl/QsEu5P.

Thursday: Join
the Central Washington University College of the Sciences from 5:30 to 7:00 pm
at the Science II Grand Opening. There will be tours of the facility, including
the state-of-the-art planetarium. Skip desert at home because there will be
cake. Go to http://www.cwu.edu/foundation/science-ii-grand-opening
for more information.

Friday: The
constellation Orion is four fists above the south-southwest horizon at 6:30
a.m. The Orion is a cloud of gas and dust visible with binoculars about a half
a fist below the “belt” of three stars. Are you are feeling especially attracted
to the nebula? If so, that might be because astronomers found evidence of a
black hole in the middle. They have not directly observed the back hole, which
would be the closest known one to Earth at a distance of 1,300 light years. But
the motion of stars in the region is consistent with them being near a black
hole 100 times the mass of the Sun. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/AGjFf.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky,
go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.